Evidence of meeting #11 for Status of Women in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was women.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Lise Zarac Liberal LaSalle—Émard, QC
According to some of the background material that I read, your organization's priorities are, among other things, day care services and employment equity. Given these priorities, have you done any studies to determine the effect they might have on employment insurance?
President, Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs
I'm still not clear on the question. Most of our organization's work is done by volunteers. We are not a research bureau and we do our best. We keep up on studies that have been conducted, but we do not carry out our own research activities.
In the past, we relied heavily on the studies funded by Status of Women Canada. It was a great loss for us, as a volunteer group, when Status of Women Canada stopped funding research. We feel that it is fundamentally important to study the situation of women in order to effect change.
President, Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs
We rely on the dues of our members.
President, Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs
That's how it is.
Liberal
Lise Zarac Liberal LaSalle—Émard, QC
Thank you.
Dr. Vosko, you were selected to formulate some recommendations. I'd like to hear about some of them.
You also stated in your presentation that you could give us some concrete examples. Now is your opportunity to do just that.
Canada Research Chair in Feminist Political Economy, York University, As an Individual
Thank you.
Maybe I'll start with a concrete example, since I alluded to that. I would like to show you my other slide show, which I've submitted to the clerk.
I mentioned the issue of qualifying and duration of regular benefits among industrial groups in which women predominate. Maybe I'll just start with that and then mention a few recommendations. I, like my counterpart, thought it would be a nice idea to be able to provide an example of a typical woman worker in the kind of situation I described.
The service sector is a common sector of employment for women. The average service sector worker works for 29 hours per week. Average hours in grocery stores are even lower, at 25 hours per week. In February 2009, workers in regions with 7% to 8% unemployment--Toronto, Montreal--needed 630 hours to qualify for a minimum claim of 17 weeks.
A service sector worker with 29 hours a week therefore needed 22 weeks of work prior to a layoff to meet the 630-hour requirement. It is even harder for a grocery sector worker. This worker needed 26 weeks of work prior to a layoff to obtain weekly hours over the 630 minimum.
Both of these workers would have needed only 18 weeks of work prior to a layoff to qualify for a minimum UI claim in the weeks system. If we look at the issue of duration, workers in a similar region with 7% to 8% unemployment who have at least 630 hours of insured earnings before a layoff would normally be eligible for 17 to 40 weeks of EI benefits, depending upon their insured hours. Until September 11, 2010, all claimants are eligible for this extra five weeks.
But if we take the case of a grocery store worker again, a grocery store worker in this region with an average of 25 hours a week and steady work for a full 52 weeks before the layoff--so 1,300 insured hours--is eligible for a maximum of 31 weeks of benefits until September 2010, and after that the duration declines to 26 weeks. This worker would have been eligible for up to 40 weeks under the pre-existing weeks system.
Given the relationship between hours worked in the qualifying period and duration of regular benefits, it's not surprising--this is the figure I showed in my presentation about exhaustion of EI benefits, and you have it in your package—that women exhaust their benefits more than men do.
I think it's really quite important to put a face to this. Many women in the labour market work in the service sector. I chose a grocery sector worker and looked at some of the numbers that Statistics Canada offers us on hours. I think that's quite important. That was one of the examples I would give.
If you would allow me to make a few more comments about recommendations—
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson
You have only about 30 seconds left, and then we have to move to the next questioner.
Canada Research Chair in Feminist Political Economy, York University, As an Individual
Absolutely.I'll mention one.
Canada Research Chair in Feminist Political Economy, York University, As an Individual
If there are further questions, I can address them.
I would argue, in commenting on my co-presenters' presentation, that I think it would be prudent to engage in a pilot project to explore two issues around extending EI coverage to self-employed women and to develop scenarios for who is a self-employed worker and develop possible models for EI policy that would be inclusive of such workers.
I have some data on self-employment that confirm some of the comments that the commentator made, that many self-employed women, particularly those who work on their account, like child care workers, hairdressers, etc., earn relatively low income and should benefit from employment insurance.
Conservative
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good day to our witnesses. Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much, Dr. Vosko, Ms. Calhoun and Mrs. Macklin, for your presentations.
Dr. Vosko, our analysts have done a thorough review of your work. They have prepared some very intelligent questions for us and I'd like to put a few of them to you at this time. For instance:
In your research work, you have examined how precarious employment deviates from the standard employment relationship in several countries. Could you provide us with an explanation of how precarious employment compared with the standard employment relationship? What are the differences and similarities between these two types of employment relationships? Would you agree that the current EI program was designed for the standard of employment relationship? If yes, what kinds of income security programs are needed to address precarious forms of employment?
Canada Research Chair in Feminist Political Economy, York University, As an Individual
I've tried to show that the employment insurance system, despite the attempt to include part-time, temporary, and multiple job holders among the insured, still pivots on a full-time, full-year job, that is, on a 35-hour work week. I would argue, in response to your question, that it continues to pivot on a typical worker.
In my recommendations, I didn't have enough time to speak about maternity and parental benefits, which were of course introduced in 1971 and 1990 respectively. I should stress that they have also been negatively affected in certain respects by the shift from UI to EI, although the maximum weeks of benefits is quite a different question.
Because the hours system also applies to maternity and parental benefits, workers in part-time and temporary employment have trouble qualifying. Those who do qualify face lower income replacement rates and tend to take leaves of shorter duration. Women are required to have 600 hours to qualify for maternity and parental leave, as opposed to the previous requirement of 20 weeks with a minimum of 15 hours per week, or the equivalent of 300 hours.
Like regular benefits, EI maternity and parental benefits take this full-time, full-year job and 35-hour week as a norm, in essence penalizing women who lack full-time continuous employment and penalizing self-employed workers as well. Furthermore, although the parental benefits were extended to 35 weeks in 2000, with little change to the maximum benefit level, the weekly replacement rate has also effectively declined.
A low rate replacement rate and a low cap for maximum insurable earnings also create an incentive for the low-income earner in the household to take the leave, more so than the high-income earner. So even though parental leave is extended to both men and women, the gender segmentation, the sex segmentation in the labour market, affects who takes the benefits.
My colleague Katherine Marshall, at Statistics Canada, has furthermore shown that women who are in non-permanent work are almost five times more likely to return to work if they're able to qualify for EI maternity--five times more likely to return to work in less than nine months--compared to those with a permanent job. So the dynamics that I tried to describe around qualification, getting in the door, and exhaustion apply as well to maternity benefits, albeit in somewhat different ways.
I would say that most certainly the typical job remains the model both for EI regular benefits and for maternity benefits, although I chose to focus on regular benefits because of the recession and also in looking at what other witnesses have spoken of.
Thank you.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Thank you very much.
Mrs. Macklin, you spoke to us earlier about parental leave and the problems encountered by women entrepreneurs who want to have a baby and truly take advantage of this experience, because they are forced to go back to work very quickly.
Do these women receive $100 a month from the government for each child under the age of six years? If so, wouldn't this be enough money to put the child in day care and continue working without having to worry?
Vice-President, Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs
Receiving $100 a month isn't nearly enough to cover the cost of day care, especially if you have two or three small children. It isn't even enough to cover the cost in Quebec where day care services are available for $7 a day.
Vice-President, Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs
Day care costs $35 a week in Quebec. Elsewhere the cost is almost $300 per month per child. So then, $100 doesn't get you very far. What's needed is a national day care program, like the one in Quebec, and a national EI program for women, like the one in Quebec. If we use Quebec as an example—a very good example, I might add—such programs are already in place. I'm here today not to fight for Quebec women, but for other women in Canada.
When interviewed recently, Mr. Harper said that not only do we need immigrants, but that a real effort will be made to welcome them, because of Canada's declining birth rate. However, since both of these programs were introduced in Quebec, the birth rate has increased, the child poverty rate has decreased and more women are now working.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
During these tough economic times, do you not think that undue pressure would be put on the government if a national program for women similar to the one in Quebec were developed to give women access to a worthwhile maternity benefits program that is not governed by employment insurance?
Vice-President, Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs
Not governed by employment insurance?
Vice-President, Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs
Are you referring to the day care program?
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
No, I'm talking about the maternity benefits and parental leave program.
Vice-President, Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs
Obviously, each time the government spends money, especially during a crisis, our debt load increases. Choices must be made. Personally, if I had to choose between expanding benefit entitlements by five weeks, a measure that may not help many people either because the economy may have rebounded, or people may have lost their jobs before the measures actually takes effect, and extending these benefits to women, I would opt for the latter.